The Honeymoon

by Violet Winspear

  'I prefer to be alone,' Jorja said, and at that moment she meant it. As he walked away with the slight halt which usually moved her, she felt temper boiling up in her. 'I hate your arrogance —you can go and play cards with the Devil for all I care!'

  He turned briefly at the dressing-room door to look at her. 'I wouldn't trust the love of a Norman girl, so your hatred is fine with me.'

  The door closed behind him, and Jorja sat there in the silence, feeling as if there were crystals in her eyes. On the way to Duke's he had said that love was inseparable from hate, and Jorja realised how much truth there was in the statement. The two emotions were like profiles on a coin and at any given time one or the other could reveal itself.

  Well, she wouldn't be sitting here when he passed her by to go and play cards. With a rustling of her satin robe Jorja rose to her feet and walked out to the terrace, where she leaned against the stone parapet and felt the sea wind ruffling her hair. She wasn't aware that the crystals had melted in her eyes until she felt a wetness on her cheeks.

  'I can only be hurt once by a woman,' he had said.

  'I can only be hurt by Angelica,' he had implied.

  Jorja scrubbed away her tears but she could do nothing about the feelings from which they had stemmed.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Before Renzo left for the card room he came out to where Jorja stood and flung a coat around her shoulders. 'You have quite a temper on the quiet.' He gazed at her rather searchingly in the light flooding upward from the hotel gardens. 'Don't stay out here all night, will you?'

  'Would it matter if I did?' She spoke offhandedly.

  'What in the name of heaven started all this?' His hands clamped her shoulders. 'One minute you were sweet as wine, the next you were calling yourself my harlot.'

  'I'm something of the sort.' She fixed her gaze upon the starlight beyond his shoulder. 'Because we stood in front of a priest doesn't alter the reasons for our marriage.'

  'Reasons?' He gave her a slight shake. 'I will give you only one that matters, you enjoyed every moment in my arms and it's absurd of you to feel some kind of puritanical guilt. We are man and wife. We are entitled to share a bed. And despite what you may in your innocence believe, it isn't every woman who can achieve the kind of satisfaction which you achieved with me. Relish your body!'

  'As you do, I suppose?'

  'As I do.' Vigorously he pulled her to him and brought his mouth down hard upon hers. 'Do you still want me to go and play cards with the Devil, or shall I stay and make love to you?'

  It was the word love that stabbed her. If only it was love that he felt instead of a desire he could switch on just by looking at her, the mirror in which he could imagine himself with Angelica.

  Jorja pulled away from him and it was her answer to his question. In the upflung light his face looked darkly dangerous, as if he might sweep her up in his arms and do as he wanted with her. She tensed, and she didn't know if she felt relief or chagrin when he turned on his heel and left her alone on the terrace.

  She stood there for ages, the things they had said to each other sifting through her mind. There was no denying that her senses leapt when she thought of him in a physical way. There was a tactile strength to his hands which made her feel weak when she imagined them stroking her body, pausing with a subtle awareness of where she wanted him to linger.

  Like the proud little fool he had called her, she had sent him away. Hurt little idiot that she was she couldn't bear him to believe that like Angelica she couldn't be trusted with a man's feelings.

  She hugged the coat around her and wished it was Renzo's arms, enfolding, tightening, pulling her so close to him that she shared the vibrancy of his body. Music from the hotel ballroom drifted on the night air, and she felt desperately moved by the romanticism of it.

  Did she love Renzo, or had she fallen for his sex appeal? She was so hopelessly inexperienced in such matters, and she wondered if she had felt his attraction when Angelica had brought him to the rectory. She had noticed how handsome he was, and she had seen for herself that he was dazzled by her sister. It had been written all over him, and Jorja couldn't believe that he would be indifferent if Angelica came back into his life.

  He wouldn't kick her out of it, as he had sworn he would. No one could do that to someone they loved ... that was the tyranny of love, and Jorja faced it as she stood alone on the terrace and felt the tangy night air stroking her face and hair.

  It wouldn't be wise of her to be in love with Renzo because she would have to live in fear of Angelica, who could smile into a man's eyes and make him forget everything but the lure of her personality.

  When the drifting music grew too impossible to bear, Jorja went indoors. The waiter had left the fondants on the coffee table, so she picked up the dish and took them to bed with her ... a compensation, she realised, for the richer sweetness of Renzo's kisses.

  There were magazines at the bedside and she flicked over the glossy pages, chewing a delicious concoction of strawberry cream, half afraid that she would turn a page and find her sister smiling up at her, clad in something outrageously chic. Had she always secretly known that there was no escape from Angelica? That something in their genes, which had made them outwardly alike, would attract them to the same man?

  Their difference lay in the intensity of their inward nature. Jorja had always breathed deeper of the roses, and idled to watch the wild birds when they flew to the stone table in the garden, where she scattered breadcrumbs and peanut kernels, not to mention the Sunday treat of raisins and sultanas filched from the jar before she started to bake the teatime cake.

  With a sigh Jorja slid down in the big bed and flung her arm across the cool surface of the adjacent pillow. No matter how often she told herself that she could bear Renzo's love for Angelica, still she was left with the desolate feeling that like a bird in the garden she was pecking at crumbs while her sister treated with indifference the feast she could have shared with Renzo.

  Jorja knew that her own heart was warmer, her sense of loyalty far more constant, but that was the way of love. For some reason it took no heed of virtues but often flew to the tree which would be barren in winter and bear no fruit to stave off the cold and biting wind.

  Wanting an escape from her restless thoughts Jorja switched off the lamp, burrowed down in the bedcovers and tried not to care that she was alone. She had said defiantly that she wanted to be alone, but it wasn't true. Here in the darkness she wanted to be held in Renzo's arms. She wanted his warm breath against her skin, his warm and seeking touch against her body.

  Her toes curled into the bottom sheet, and inexorably the desire for him spread all over her. She rolled on to her face, stifling a moan of sheer loneliness. She had brought this on herself and now she had to endure the misery of it. What was a bit of pride compared to the delicious thrill of surrender ... right now she would exchange every foolish word for the tumultuous fun and pleasure of being with Renzo.

  If now and again at Duncton she had paused to wonder about body contact between a man and a woman, she had certainly never dreamed that it could be so profound; two people in communion with something beyond themselves ... the life force, perhaps, igniting a glow of the soul as well as a joyous satisfaction of the body.

  'My luve's like a red, red rose,' Robert Burns had written, so much more simple and direct than other terms she had come across in other books.

  Such a communion with Renzo was worth a little heartache. Perhaps even a lot, for there was no seeing into the future and what might happen to their marriage if Angelica came back into his life.

  There in the lonely vastness of the four-poster Jorja willed Renzo to come to her. She wanted to wrap her arms around him, here in the warmth she had made for him. She felt a yearning for his lips on hers, desirous and urgent.

  She kept whispering his name, and fell asleep with his name on her lips. She awoke some time later and was instantly aware of him beside her. She smiled to herself and turned towards the le
ngth and bareness of him. 'Renzo?' She touched him until he stirred. 'Renzo?'

  'What is it, carita?' He sounded sleep-bemused.

  'Make love to me,' she breathed into his ear.

  His warm hands found her and brushed away the silken barrier of her nightdress. She quivered deep down. Every portion of her was longing to be his. She clung to him, her lips parting as he stroked the sensitive peaks of her breasts.

  'So now you want my attentions?' he murmured.

  'Yes.' Her voice was husky with desire, the feel of his body was unbearably exciting, tantalising her with its firm and pliant touch. 'I was being silly—this is all that matters, and you were right to call me a little fool. Oh Renzo, I do want you!'

  'Do you, donna mia?' He trailed his lips across her throat. 'Tell me how you want me?'

  'Y-you know.'

  'I want you to tell me.'

  'I-in words?'

  'Or mime.' He was laughing softly at her, shades of threat in his mood, letting her know that he was a Latin male who made people pay when they crossed him.

  'You can be cruel when you like, Renzo.' Her lips brushed his hard chin, softly swollen with the urges of her body. 'I—I was a good girl—a nice girl --'

  'Hush.' His lips closed sensuously over hers and his warm body pinned her to the bed. 'My beautiful prisoner. My golden girl. My... .'

  There the talking stopped and the kissing grew more intense. Jorja lay besieged by his passion and her own, but in and out of her mind floated a question that none of the mounting pleasure could take away. Had he been on the verge of saying ... Angelica?

  Even as Jorja felt the ultimate of physical contact with Renzo, she had a conviction he had been about to speak her sister's name. The magazine writers always referred to Angelica as the golden girl, so who else could he have meant?

  'Are you having forty winks?' His voice broke in amusedly on her silence.

  'No.' She lay clasped to his heart, which still made a soft thunder beneath her cheek. She listened to the sound and it was like a continuation of the intimacy, a thudding of his blood through the very nerve centre of his emotions. She lay on the outside of his heart and had a mental image of her sister locked inside that chamber, holding on firmly to his love despite all the pain she had caused him.

  'Renzo.'

  'I am listening to you.'

  'What will happen if—if we make a baby?'

  'All the usual things, I expect.' He ran his hand seductively up and down her spine. 'Does the idea frighten you?'

  'I—I don't know.'

  'I suppose it's something we should have talked about.' He spoke thoughtfully. 'A bit selfish of me not to have discussed it with you before we—Jorja, are you trembling?'

  'Yes—I don't know why.' But she did know ... she was on the outside of his heart but she was the one whose body he was enjoying without any of the love he felt for her sister ... selfish, disloyal, but still the golden girl ... the one he really made love to!

  'I have some Remy Martin.' Renzo swung himself out of bed. 'You need a brandy.'

  He fetched the bottle and a glass, and seated on the side of the four-poster he made Jorja sip the drink until she started to feel warm again ... warm in body if not in heart.

  She gazed at Renzo in the ruby lamplight, made afraid by her own emotions. He reached out a hand and stroked a wing of her hair. 'You said it yourself, donna. Too much has happened to you in too short a time and I should have been more aware of this. From a quiet life in the country I make you part of my life and it's natural that you should feel disturbed. Drink a little more brandy.'

  She did as he asked, for what he said made sense. Her life at Duncton had never held the excitements which she had been through today. She had never even had a boy-friend so Renzo was the first man in her life, seated there in all his maleness, his eyes upon the velvety smoothness of her shoulders and arms.

  Perhaps this was the moment to ask him to set her free so she could go back to the life where she belonged, but the words just wouldn't come. They weren't there any more. The clamorous need for the safety and security of the rectory was replaced by a new set of emotions.

  It was no longer possible for her to leave Renzo ... some essence of him had got right inside her ... something more than the physical memory of his possession of her body. What was it Angelica had said to her? That if she fell in love she would lay down body and soul for the man.

  It was that... knowing it had happened to her the way her sister had predicted which made her shake like an aspen leaf, but thankfully the shakes had gone and with a little sigh she relaxed against the pillows.

  'I—I think that's the first nervous attack I ever had. It was very—odd.'

  Still with a sombre look in his eyes Renzo took hold of her left hand and held his fingers against her pulse. 'Over excitement.' His smile was faintly quizzical. 'I forget the differences between us, those of age, experience and background.'

  But Jorja knew the real truth ... when he kissed her and his lips grew fierce and wanting, it was Angelica he was kissing. When he touched her and made her senses feel as if they were leaping out of her skin, it was Angelica he was mad to possess.

  Jorja felt she could face it. She wasn't about to have the vapours again, just like an authentic village maiden.

  'You'll catch cold sitting there.' Her lashes curved down with a touch of shyness. 'Come into bed.'

  He finished off the brandy she had left, put away the bottle, then replaced his tawny body alongside hers. His hair was in black disarray against the white pillow, and the lamp diffused an intimate glow around them as they lay side by side.

  'I must not forget again how young you are,' he murmured. 'Young and new to the ways of a man.'

  Jorja drew her underlip between her teeth, feeling the sensitivity which his kisses had left. 'I don't want to be treated like a—a child.'

  'We shall see.' He leaned over her for a breathless moment, then he clicked off the lamp. 'Go to sleep.'

  Jorja lay beside him in the darkness, waiting for him to pull her into his arms so they could fall asleep together. But the minutes ticked by and he didn't reach out for her, and Jorja was left with the bleak realisation that the quivering bundle to whom he had given brandy had neither looked nor behaved like the self-possessed golden girl who sauntered along the catwalks of the fashion shows and didn't care a rap whose heart she took and broke.

  Tears stung Jorja's eyes. It was a little too late for him to talk about how young and untried she was, as if with a few cool words he could tone down the physical heat which they had shared. He had led her kiss by kiss into the realms of passion, and brought her to responses which had made her cry out almost for his mercy.

  It was true that twenty-four hours ago she would have been glad to be left alone, but now she was aching for his arms around her. Like some ruthless potentate in one of those library romances he had imposed himself until not an inch of her could be called her own any more. He had to be aware of what he had done to a total innocent like herself ... she had never been kissed, but now it was a different story.

  There came drifting back into her mind the question she had asked him ... what would happen if they had made a baby? She lay and thought of the possibility of his darkness and vigour being duplicated into a child which she would carry.

  She touched a hand to herself. Here inside her the child of Renzo Talmonte would grow body and limbs and a head of black hair. It would make thrilling movements inside her, letting her know that she wasn't alone, that she was going to be able to hold someone who would belong to her as nothing and nobody ever had. It wouldn't matter, then, if Renzo didn't love her. His child would look at her with loving eyes, and encircle her neck with loving arms. They would be all in all to each other, and she would have given Renzo something he would never receive from Angelica.

  Bearing a child meant being pulled out of shape, of being racked by morning sickness, and developing strange fancies for pickles in the middle of the night.
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br />   But the end result had to be marvellous, to Jorja's way of thinking, and her way of thinking had never been Angelica's. Her sister was utterly devoted to her own beautiful face and perfect figure; she would never risk them in order to become a mother. She could never love any man enough to let him make her pregnant, but Jorja lay and wondered if Renzo had given her a baby.

  She went over in her mind every instant of their day together ... her senses swam in recollection of his total possession of her, to the very length and breadth of his potent manhood. Oh God, she loved him ... loved what he had done to her!

  Curled on her side of the bed, lapped by the sensuous waves of memory, Jorja fell off to sleep and slept dreamlessly far into the following morning.

  She awoke to find herself alone in the bed, and a quick glance around each door revealed that Renzo wasn't in the suite or out on the terrace.

  It was another bright morning, and after bathing and putting on a summery white dress with touches of lemon, Jorja decided to go in search of her husband. She wasn't hungry but she longed for a cup of tea and as it was almost eleven o'clock they could possibly share a pot of tea in the lounge downstairs.

  Jorja was wandering about in slight mystification, and had decided to take a look in the reading room in the hope that Renzo was there with a newspaper, or was writing a letter at one of the desks, when a voice stopped her in her tracks.

  'Hello, sweet face.'

  She went to pass the obstruction in flannels and a sea-island shirt, but he caught her by the wrist and she could tell that he wasn't going to let her go without a struggle.

  'I missed you in the ballroom last night.'

  She gave him a look which might have been disquieting to someone less complacent. 'I had better things to do,' she retorted.

  'All by yourself?' His smile spread into his smallish, pale blue eyes. His fair hair was arranged in a casual cow-lick and showed none of the virile strength of Renzo's hair, being of the type that would probably thin out before he was thirty. Jorja felt a flash of contempt; his looks and his voice jarred on her in a way that Renzo's never did.